iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

How to Organize Your Calendar in 2025

(Sponsored Post) By Amy Spitzfaden Both on Thu, 02/13/2025

Apple is pretty good about updating its products, but it seems to have forgotten about the Calendar app and its many downsides. The makers of Informant 5, on the other hand, do not forget to regularly improve their app based on user experience. The latest updates to this calendar and task-management app are a productivity game-changer.

Update: Apple has cancelled the Airprint feature from iOS4.2...:(

 

The web is now abuzz with the impending release of this long overdue update to the Ipad. Having been long accustomed to features such as multitasking and folders on my iPhone 4, the limitations of iOS 3.2 has become painfully obvious and unbearable. As I reflect upon the past few weeks, the following 4.2 random thoughts must be constantly nagging every geek and will no doubt dominate thousands of pantry room discussions in the next few days (what else???):  

 

Recently I’ve begun a quest in finding a new job; however nowadays there are so many resources at our disposal that it can be quite daunting in sorting them all out.  One surprising resource is the iPhone app.  If you ever noticed in Apple’s App commercials there is an app for almost everything in their store or as they would say “There’s an app for that.”  Yet, despite the fact that like many iPhone users, I use apps for many things; I never thought of using an app to find a job until I was in need of one.  So far the best app in my experience has been Monster.com’s job search app for the iPhone. 

As the app store grows, apps are being developed to fill all areas of our life. From astronomy to hunting there's now an app for that. This is the first of what i hope will be a regular column looking at apps for niche markets that may surprise you. This first blog will look at a niche market that's near to my heart-- Ultimate Frisbee.


Ultimate is the fastest growing sport in America. For those of you who have never heard of ultimate, here is a brief description from the USA ultimate website.

TextNow is currently available for free, and if you'd like to do free texting on your iPad or iPod touch, this app certainly deserves consideration. They actually give you a free phone number that others can use to send text messages to your iPad or iPod touch. It also can be used to send picture messages. It does have ads, but you can use in-app purchasing to upgrade to a version without apps ($5.99 per year). Here's a video demo.

The Ultimate PDF Reader Roundup

By Werner Ruotsalainen

(Note that a cleaned up and extended, easy-to-digest version of this article – without the lengthy section on the chart – will be published in the iPhone / iPad Buyer's Guide. Go buy it ;-) ).

The iPad offers an excellent way of reading PDF files. While you can do this right in Safari (with web based PDF's) or can freely download Apple's own iBooks, it may be still worth checking out how almost all (!) the currently available PDF reader solutions. Knowing what the alternative PDF readers are capable of is essential as reading online PDF's with Safari lacks any kind of features like in-document searching. In addition, iBooks lacks some essential features too.

The iPad's onscreen keyboard approaches the dimensions of a full-size keyboard (in landscape orientation, at least), but the layout of the keys is not completely standard. One of the most maddening things about the default keyboard is that it lacks an apostrophe key. I'm used to the apostrophe's position on a standard keyboard—all the way to the right just before the Enter key. I keep reaching for it with my right "pinkie" finger and end up hitting the Return key instead. I can enter an apostrophe from the "symbols" keyboard, which is accessed by tapping on the ".?123" key.

MultiSearch is a free app that lets you search multiple search engines simultaneously. These include Google, Bing, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Flickr, iTunes, AppStore, Last.fm, Panoramio, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, and FriendFeed. You can choose which engines you want to search, and all the results are displayed in a single, browsable view. Plus, you can enable geolocation such that the search results are related to your current location.

GameFinder (free) is a new app that helps you find games in a variety of ways. According to the press release, you can check out games that were recently reviewed on Slide To Play, a website that focuses on reviewing games and that has developed the app. You can also explore games by genre, or browse through lists such as STP Games of the Month, zombie-themed games, Match-3 puzzles, first-person shooters, games under a dollar, and more.

Okay, we won't get into an emotionally charged discussion of whether genetically modified food is bad for you. But if you're inclined to think that it might be, then you might be interested in ShopNoGMO, a free app that gives you a database of hundreds of brand names in 22 food categories that are free of genetically modified content. And if you're not sure how you feel about genetically modified food, the app also has an About GMOs section that gives you more information. Also in the app is a section that offers four simple tips for avoiding GMO.

Quick Review: AppBox Pro

By Louis Senecal

AppBox Pro is one of the apps that I mentioned previously I had purchased that I really like. I do not use it on a daily basis and I am still playing around with some of it, but as you will see below, there are a lot of handy utilities built in. This is like a mini toolbox of programs which reminds me of some of the add-ons that I had in my pocket pc days. The best part is that this app only costs $0.99. Below are the different components of what you can expect in this app.

Awesome Note

By Tracy Sebastian



I found an awesome way to keep all my tasks and thoughts together.  The app is Awesome Note.  I could describe it - but the pictures below are worth 1,000 words. 

I wrote a review of Evernote a couple weeks ago.  That is still the best at keeping my research, recipes, etc. notes together.  What makes Awesome Note even more awesome - it syncs with Evernote.  It also syncs with Google docs - if you haven't jumped on the Evernote bandwagon yet. 

There is a small learning curve with Awesome Note - but it is very small - the video below will help. 

Bottom Line: 
Worth $3.99 - a must have for moms. I give it 8/10.

www.bridworks.com

Here are the pictures and a short video from YouTube to demo:

 

Even though you have Voice Memo on your iPhone you might also be interested in the free Pocket Dictate, which lets you make recordings and then tap the send button to e-mail it to your typist from within the app. You can also send it via ftp. The app automatically compresses the WAV file. There are other useful controls, too, including the ability to overwrite and insert. A voice activation feature lets you set it so that it only records when you're speaking. And while it's designed to emulate — and replace — a dictaphone, obviously it could be used for other purposes, such as interviews.

 

I've seen a number of posts around lamenting that various iPhone Alarm Clock applications can only  play canned sounds or iPod tunes, but not Ringtones for an alarm sound (Although I've got to admit I can't imagine why anyone would want to think their phone was ringing at 6:00AM!?).

Actually, if your Alarm Ap supports iPod tune playing for alarm sounds, then, as they say, "You're in fat city".

To use a Ringtone for a

At a college bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, students can enter to win a free iPhone every day, simply by reselling their textbooks. Staff members said that they have been noticeably busier this sell-back season, though they can't credit the iPhone giveaway completely.

Students who sell their books get to spin the big iPhone-A-Day Giveaway wheel. There are prizes on nearly every slot - though some are freebies such as "An Encouraging Smile" and "A Word of Wisdom." The grand prize is awarded  when the wheel lands on a small slice of black with the image of an iPhone.

If the student's spin ends up stopping at the spot next to the iPhone winning area, bad news. That's the only place on the board that doesn't result in a prize of any kind. Nada.

But just think of the excitement as a student spins the big wheel and it finally stops directly on the iPhone space. Pandemonium, right? Joy?

Not for one student. He told store employees that he already had an iPhone, and asked if he could get a Snuggie instead. Staffers convinced him that an iPhone was worth a lot more than a $20 blankie.

And this guy went to my university?? Standards sure have fallen...

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